let us leave yeti, as he prepares to lead the rebellion against the imperial forces, and consider some of the other paths fate could have led him down after being kidnaped by the landlord and zombi .
19. yeti sold to mad scientist, combined with other entities to make monster…
the truck rolled on and on.
yeti started to get hungry. surely, he thought, they will have to stop and feed us.
they must have some use for us, if they go to the trouble of kidnaping us and transporting us in this manner. what good would our starved to death dead bodies be to anybody?
but even as he thought this. he recalled reading a story in a book from the library, many years ago, when he had first learned to read.
the book had been called tales of the sinister and the macabre, edited by richard carstairs magruder.
and the story had been called “there is no such thing as useless” by edmund stephenson penson.
*
victoria nightingale and arthur villon were best friends.
they were friends because they were the only two children left in the village.
most of the other inhabitants of the village had taken the high road to the great city, where they hoped to become stars of stage or screen, or the hangers on of stars of stage and screen, or to start their own religious or political or artistic movements, or be the faithful followers of new religious or political or artistic movements, or to become hard-hitting journalists who would expose the new religious or political or artistic movements, or become famous chefs and open their own fabulously successful restaurants or cafes, or become mimes or street singers or sidewalk artists, or failing all that, to just become bums and panhandlers and parasites.
to get to the great city required a certain amount of luck.
bandits infested the great highway, lying in wait to rob and sometimes murder unwary travelers..
but the bandits were not the biggest problem or obstacle.
the biggest danger to the travelers came from the press gangs - the official press gangs of the empire, which staffed the work gangs of the planet, and the even more numerous press gangs and slave catchers of the colonial planets and solar systems.
the day came when there were no more cans or boxes of food left in the abandoned general store in the village where victoria and arthur were now not just the only two children but the only two humans left .
“what is for dinner?” victoria plaintively asked arthur. this was a sort of standing joke or catchphrase that they shared.
arthur scratched his head. this action was also a standing source of humor between them, and both scratched their heads at every opportunity to do so.
“each other, i guess,” arthur finally replied.
“that is a pretty poor joke, arthur,” victoria replied, “even for you.”
“yes,” arthur agreed sadly. “humor has never been my strong suit.”
“neither has anything else.”
“i agree you could say that.”
“you are, in fact, quite useless.”
arthur had been hearing such comments all his life, not just from his best friend victoria. but from the other children and adults who had now abandoned the village.
“there is nothing to be gained by being negative,” arthur replied, “i suggest we conserve our energy by ceasing to argue in this manner and take to the high road and take our chances on reaching the great city, as we probably should have done much sooner.”
victoria sighed, and the pair set out forthwith into the gathering dusk.
16. the skinny man
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